THE race for the East Cape trainers’ title is producing some spectacular racing at the Fairview track in Greenbushes.
Top trainers, Gavin Smith and Alan Greeff, are involved in a thrilling duel for the title. This has captured the imagination of the South African racing public. They have been fighting it out for the title over many years, but it has never been as close as this season between the giants of Nelson Mandela Bay Racing.
The season started in August last year and there are now only two Fairview meetings remaining over the next two Fridays, July 21 and 28.
Smith is the defending champion, and had a wonderful start to the season. Greeff started catching up in the second half of the season, and is only two winners behind the champion – 122 to 120.
This race is going right down to the wire and the real winners in this are probably the Fairview crowd who can look forward to an enormous battle in the remaining 17 races, eight on the Polytrack this coming Friday and nine at the bumper meeting the next Friday.
At the meeting this past Friday the two stables gave it their absolute everything to win as many races as possible. Smith won four of the eight races and Greeff three.
There were some incredibly close finishes in some of the races between the two stables. Two of the country’s best jockeys, S’manga Khumalo for Smith and Richard Fourie for Greeff, put up a real show with classy riding to secure a victory race after race.
One of the breathtaking finishes was when the Greeff-trained Grazinginthegrass just got his nose down when it counted, to beat the Smith horse Cherry Ano. Grazinginthegrass has been one of the equine stars of the season and will probably end the season as the top earner at Fairview. He won five races from eight starts (with two second places) for total prize money of R463 750.
While the focus is on the battle between Smith and Greeff, it is easy to miss the excellent showing by one of the smaller stables.
At the last meeting Smith and Greeff won seven of the eight races between them. So which trainer managed to win the other race?
It was indeed Lunga Gila who continues to impress in his first season as a licensed trainer. Sirnihaallongsword made it back-to-back victories for the Gila stable, very well ridden by Jabu Jacobs.
The racing operator 4Racing is naming races after trainers countrywide, to show appreciation for their work and Sirnihaallongsword was a very appropriate winner of the Lunga Gila Racing Handicap.
A very interesting statistic is that Gila has the best winning percentage in the season of any Fairview trainer, even better than Smith and Greeff!
Gila saddled 58 runners with eight winners for a win percentage of 13.8. He also picked up five second places and six thirds.
With stats like that Gila should soon get more support from owners and sponsors and is a stable to keep an eye on.
